sacred contagion

The text also gives many examples of sacred contagion brought about by contact with these spiritually unclean people and things.

Sacred contagion is the belief that spiritual properties within an object, place, or person may be passed to another object, place, or person, usually by direct contact or physical proximity.

She states that, "We cannot understand sacred contagion unless we distinguish a class of cultures in which pollution ideas flourish from another class of cultures, including our own, in which they do not."

Anthropologist Mary Douglas, whose work is heavily influenced by Durkheim, wrote an extensive modern work on the topic of sacred contagion entitled Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo.

While the concept of sacred contagion has existed in numerous cultures since before recorded history, the term "sacred contagion" originated with French sociologist Émile Durkheim, who introduced it in his book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.